MakerBot Industries

iPhone dock created in Shapesmith and printed on Thing-O-Matic

How can I model the thing I want to print?

As the population of 3D printer operators continues to grow, answering that question will become more important than ever. Combining parametric modeling and a clean UI, browser-based Shapesmith hopes to provide an open source answer.

The developer, MakerBot operator, and Thingizen Benjamin Nortier tells us all about it.

Q: Who are you and what is Shapesmith?

I’m a software developer with an Engineering background and I’m also a 3D printing enthusiast. Shapesmith is a browser-based 3D modeling tool that I’ve been working on, and am very excited about. It is aimed at users who want to create high-quality parametric models for 3D printing, but who don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on expensive 3D CAD software.

I wanted to design an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) after being inspired by DIY Drones. I realised that it would be very attractive to 3D print aeroplane parts and I was using tools like Blender and Sketchup to design some airfoils or wings.

Because I had worked on a 3D CAD tool for electromagnetic simulation earlier in my career, I was very dissatisfied by the free design tools that were available. This dissatisfaction was reinforced when I bought a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic and started to design some models. So I decided to try and make something better.

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We constantly get great ideas for additions or improvements to ReplicatorG from our users. They range from the fantastic to the fantastical. Almost always it’s hard to tell someone: “No, sorry, we can’t work on that right now.” Since our hardware and software are Open Source, it’s possible for people to add their own features to it, but it’s not always practical.

I’m sure many of our readers know that what Open Source is, but I want to take this paragraph to explain as a refresher. While there is some lawyering as to the exact definition of Open Source, the general idea of Open Source is: Users get the design docs as well as the product, so they can understand and modify what they use. For MakerBot that means our hardware designs as well as our Source Code are available on the web for our users (and anyone else) to inspect, mutate, or just ponder. A great example of how open source super-charges innovation is some of the great work Rob Giseburt has done to tweak his own setup, and support the MakerBot community. Because we open our designs to the community, Rob has been able to create nifty hardware add-ons as well as some great software updates.

We’d like to make this kind of innovation easier for MakerBot users, to help them expand, tweak, and improve their own setup. To that end, we are hosting a “Tinkering on ReplicatorG” class for the New York MakerBot User Group and other makers. It will be an introduction to updating and changing ReplicatorG. The class will be on December 8th, from 6:30 to 8:30PM, at the MakerBot Workshop (314 Dean St in Brooklyn). Hosted by MakerBot’s own Software and Support folks, it will be an hour of setup, tutorial, and discussion, followed by an hour of DIY workshopping. We will have experienced ‘botters on hand to answer questions, help out, and give suggestions.

If you every said “Geez, it would be really cool if this window did X” or “Wow, if only I could make the program also Y” this is your chance for some hands-on help doing that. All you need to bring is a laptop that has a USB port and runs Windows, Mac, or Linux. Well, that and some curiosity and creativity!

The Skinny:
Tinkering on ReplicatorG Class
Dec 8th, from 6:30PM to 8:30PM
@ The MakerBot Workshop
314 Dean Street (between 3rd & 4th Ave)
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Venezuelan artist Pedro Morales relies on his MakerBot Cupcake extensively for his new installation, De Redes and Cadenas, using it to transform brief poems by Rafael Cadenas into sculptures made up of machine-readable cyphers such as QR codes and Microsoft Tag.

The above video demonstrates how a viewer might experience the installation, using a cellphone to read the sculptures made up of transformed poems.

This is a very neat MakerBot-enabled work, and it also provides an interesting view of Cadenas’ work, which appears to be under-translated into English.

Are you using a MakerBot as an artistic tool?  If so please share your stories with us — most of us here at the BotCave are more engineer than poet, and we need to know where free-associating artists want to push the boundaries of 3d printing.

Recently Possible: Objects of the Future

The new art exhibit “Recently Possible: Objects of the Future” at the Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis features designs and prints from one of Thingiverse’s most accomplished designers – Emmett Lalish.  On display, you’ll be able to see his Screwless Heart Gears, Screwless Cube Gears,  Puzzle Sphere, Ellipsoid Puzzle, and Matlab Knot.  But, you’d better hurry – the exhibit ends December 2, 2011!

OpenSCAD (Theoretical) Rocket Science -- Don't try this at home!

Just a quick post to remind all of the members of the MakerBot Operators Group New York (MUGNY) that the second meeting of the OpenSCAD Study Group will be this Thursday in the MakerBot Workshop. I have in almost all of the homework from last month’s event — quite the success, folks! — and we plan to share it back with those who have been participating so that we can launch these tips and tricks on Thursday!

Make sure to arrive as close to 6:30pm as possible, as many of those attending will be heading right up to the NYCResistor Craft Night immediately at 8pm. The next meeting will be held the third Thursday of December: Dec 15th!

What: MUGNY OpenSCAD Study Group Meeting

When: Thursday, Nov 17th from 6:30pm-8:00pm

Where: MakerBot Workshop, 314 Dean Street, Brooklyn NY

Who: MakerBot Operators, OpenSCAD users, and their allies!

There have been rumors (well, emails and plans and such) to start Study Groups in San Francisco and possibly Seattle. If you are hosting (or hungering for) a Study Group in your area, drop us a message to griffin at MakerBot dot com and I’ll make sure to spread the word!

Thingiverse user Curlrup has a plan: he’s starting a blog which will be dedicated to printing his favorite Thingiverse objects.  His goals?  Promote 3d printing in general, and help seed creative activity by bringing designs from the community into physical fruition.

The only catch?  He doesn’t have a MakerBot yet — but he’s got a Kickstarter project to help with that.  He plans to give away his quotidian output to the kind souls who help get it started. If you kick in enough, he’ll even print an object of your choice!

Welcome to the MakerBot Community and good luck with your project!

It’s not unusual for us to receive requests for DXF files for our MakerBot machines and Scott Hunter did just that – asking for the files that would enable his group of students the ability to replace the wooden components of his school’s Thing-O-Matic with various colors of acrylic. What caught my attention was that his students were 12 year old girls, from Scotland, with a penchant for designing the future of Formula 1 cars. Yep.

The students, involved in the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge, are using CAD/CAM(Computer Aided Manufacture) software to communicate their vision. The participants are encouraged to consider everything from physics, aerodynamics, design, and manufacture, to branding, graphics, sponsorship and more. It’s a comprehensive competition with wind and smoke tunnels, culminating with a race down a 20 meter track with the cars going as fast as 60 kmh (over 37 mph!).

The competition permits the use of 3D printers for the front and rear aerofoils of their miniature gas powered balsa wood F1 cars (manufactured on a CNC machine), and Scott’s team chose the Thing-O-Matic to help them get to the finish line. As you can see from the photo above, it’s looking great! With an international field of contestants (34 countries) aged 9-19 (for a total of 12 million(!) students), and fierce competition, the Challenge is more worth following…if you can keep up.

The US Embassy in Bahrain invited MakerBot’s own Jonathan Monaghan to show off the Thing-O-Matic and talk about creativity and innovation. Our embassy puts together some pretty awesome programs there; they are bringing out Andrew W.K. next! Jonathan took a MakerBot to five major schools and universities and gave workshops to over sixty locals. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and now people all over this small island nation in the Persian Gulf can go to the Al Riwaq Art Space and use Bahrain’s first MakerBot. We think its awesome that the US State Department sees MakerBot’s ability to engage the creative side of youth and its potential to help a build a better future for everyone. We are excited to see what they make with it!

More photos from Jonathan’s trip after the break.

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Hey everybody – it’s the big day, so I sure hope you have your costume all sorted out!  We’ve been ready for awhile now, as you can see in this special Make Live segment, which features many MakerBotters showing off their finery, and a real Space Kitty!

Not too impressed?  Wow, you must have something really super all lined up.  Well then –  you’d better share your amazing costume with us in the comments!

Chris Fenton is building an electromechanical computer!

Q: “Why build an electromechanical computer?”
A: “Because I have a 3D printer, and I can”

Thanks Eric Skiff! Via NYCResistor